I’m watching a Swamp Harrier through binoculars. It lands on the island in the middle of the irrigation dam and from here it looks like it’s dancing. It rises a few feet and then falls, a sighing. Finally it lifts with something in its claw. It flies a loop of air as if the dam is forgotten and then just at the edge of memory it circles back. Now the stick is gripped in both its claws. Its rump flares white as it comes to land in the middle of a reed bank. Moments? later it rises and flies to the edge of the dam. Again it hovers before landing, but not in the sudden dive of a hunt. I can see it grasp a tall wand of dried grass. It flaps hard, tugging the resistant stem. I know the feeling, can even feel the resistance of the plant. It gives up and finds another one and repeats this until it has the material it wants and again it flies a loop away from the dam. I imagine it scanning the skies until they are empty and only then does it turn back to the dam, where deep in a raft of reeds it is building a nest.
Nature is a cruel, hard bastard. I have spoken to friends who will not take the COVID vaccine. To explain this position, they often cite some version of, "My body, and in particular, my immune system is naturally equipped to deal with viruses. I don't want to put anything unnatural or 'chemical' in my body." I wish they could read your posts and understand how beauty and cruelty coexist in nature. And how hard we work when we stand in the space where those forces collide, valiantly wrestling to tip the odds, ever so slightly, in beauty's favour.
Nature is a cruel, hard bastard. I have spoken to friends who will not take the COVID vaccine. To explain this position, they often cite some version of, "My body, and in particular, my immune system is naturally equipped to deal with viruses. I don't want to put anything unnatural or 'chemical' in my body." I wish they could read your posts and understand how beauty and cruelty coexist in nature. And how hard we work when we stand in the space where those forces collide, valiantly wrestling to tip the odds, ever so slightly, in beauty's favour.